Once Upon A Brainy Duckling
by xXAikoXx
Summary: Intelligent,talented and beautiful,Mikan Sakura is adored by everyone in school,except for her crush.Natsume Hyuuga knows the reason behind the drastic change of this brainy duckling to the perfect swan-she was rejected by her previous crush.But what he doesn't know is that her latest crush on him is going to have her heart jeopardized all over again,or even his own heart instead.


**Once Upon A Brainy Duckling**

Hi. I don't really know if I should start with this to bore you guys off.

My name is Mikan Sakura, turning 18 next month. Brunette, bubbly sometimes and brainy. Yes, in fact, I used to be the type of girl who only has brains. Not a very flattering asset when it comes to… well, love.

I have five crushes in my entire life. Yes, five. Sounds like a lot? No. Those are basically the only five guys I get to talk to in my entire life, excluding my dad of course. I'm kinda shy towards the opposite sex.

The first one, well, he was not a Japanese, but I liked him anyways. Though I really have a hard time remembering his name. I was only six back then.

The second one… Well, he (his dad actually) bought me a teddy bear. I was eight.

The third one was during elementary school… I liked him a lot. We're basically the brainy couple, at least that was what I thought last time. I've had a crush on him for four long years. It was until my nemesis, the girl whom I'm best friends with last time betrayed me and told him that I liked him. He didn't response. But soon, I heard rumors that he has had his eyes on a beautiful classmate of ours. That was when I learnt not to be naïve anymore. Guys go for girls who look beautiful, preferably naturally without make up.

I'm sorry that I'm not the kind of girl who wakes up every day and feels gorgeous and sexy the first thing in the morning. No. I have messy hair in the morning. And I'm almost totally blind thanks to my short sightedness, thus, I wear an old black-framed spectacles. In one word, I look like a mess.

Well, thanks to my third crush, I felt a bit ashamed, yes, embarrassed for liking him so badly but my feelings were never returned just because I'm not beautiful enough.

In fact, I felt that it's a sin to be ugly and unnoticeable last time, when I was hurt and in despair. I've gotten my period around that time, and I started acting awkward around guys.

Worst of all. I've got acnes all over my face, though it's not the severe type thank goodness. To tell the truth, I absolutely envied girls who have clear and clean faces every day. Those were the ones who would look into the mirror and smiled every morning. While I… I'm just having a very low self-esteem because no one was there to tell me that I was beautiful, well, at least no one was kind enough to lie to give my self-esteem a boost.

It was then, I decided to change my life focus. I used to be the top of my grade every year with ease. I was gifted this way. I was a brainy duckling who wanted a change. I started to focus more on cosmetics knowledge and ways to become beautiful. I tried on contact lenses, even the colored ones and make up too. I've paid more attention on fashion magazines and spent a quarter of my pocket money on clothes and cosmetics. I practiced every once in a while to get used to make up. And of course I kept my face clean at always to prevent acne breakouts.

Sadly, I wasn't that gifted with it comes to my skin condition. You see, for those of you who have natural clear skin, you wouldn't know how hard for us, the more unfortunate ones, struggling in order to improve our skin condition. You would give us advice like avoid greasy food, use this cleanser, use that moisturizer and so on. First of all, we've tried that, mind you. But it doesn't work. At all. For us. Yes, it's all in the genes. And thanks to that part of the genes, we're less likely to get a boyfriend than you pretty girls. Sound pretty desperate huh, but that's the life of a girl who spent way too much time crushing on boys and her feelings were never returned.

You know what irritated me the most? Girls who act like they suffered a deadly disease when they're having a small tiny pimple on some part of their faces. Over reacting much. If it's** that** severe to have one small _life threatening_ pimple on your face, humans would cease to exist million years ago.

Beauty ought not to be taken for granted. That was what I've learnt. I've worked really hard for my status today.

Well, recently, in my seventeenth year of my duckling life, my acne has begun to clear up. In fact, they're all gone now, with no scar marks because I resisted so hard not to squeeze them.

For the first time in my life, a boy (indirectly) confessed to me.

He asked for my phone number. But I was too insensitive and dense to get the hint that that fellow might have the slightest interest in me at that time. So I asked him what for that he wanted my number.

And I got him all awkward.

There was no news of him afterwards.

My forth crush came along during middle school, he was a senior by the name of Tsubasa Andou. Though I've never spoken to him before, there were rumors about how he always looks at me at the cafeteria when I was there. I took notice of him and even watched him play basketball from my class sometimes.

After he has gone to high school, I've never heard of him since then until I've enter high school myself a month ago. He was doing fine, really fine and has a rumored girlfriend by the name of Misaki.

I've not become a shallow person who minded the most about her image and appearance. I have been striving in all fields, continually excels in academics, school activities and got into the finals for the national piano and ballet competitions.

I wanted to become the perfect girl, so that one day, I would have the courage to confess to the guy I love without feeling ashamed. (Thanks to my third crush I always think that I'm not good enough for my crush) And even if I was rejected, I'd know that it would be my crush who is at loss.

My fifth crush, who is my current classmate is Natsume Hyuuga. He has been the school's prince since he had showed his face around the school campus on the first day. We have been classmates since elementary school but I've only started to notice my feelings for him recently… We seldom talk last time, back when I was still blended into the background. Recently, I've been catching myself looking and talking to him a lot, um, getting into fights with him to be exact. He seems to, well, he doesn't seem to like the new me compared to last time I guess, which was a huge disappointment for me. He used to be very gentle with me before I changed drastically on the outside from what I recalled. Now, to tell the truth, he's a jerk. A lovable jerk who still has the gentle side with him sometimes.

I used to cry for this reason alone. That the whole world likes the new me but the one and only guy I have a crush on.

Meet Mikan Sakura, the next predicted Prom Queen of her batch.

Popular, beautiful, and confident, undeniably the perfect girl in Alice Academy.


End file.
